Matt Ryan vs. Matt Stafford: Comparing career numbers

Matt Ryan vs. Matt Stafford: Comparing career numbers

Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford are two of the NFC’s best quarterbacks and epitomize the kind of player teams are hoping for when drafting in the top five. Both were selected onto bad teams and started right away as rookies.

Ryan’s first career throw was a touchdown pass in Week 1 against the eventual 0-16 Lions of 2008, a record that earned Detroit the right to pick Stafford first overall the following season in 2009.

Nearly a decade later, the two quarterbacks remain with their original teams and look to be hitting the primes of their careers.

Let’s examine these two by the numbers in anticipation of this Sunday’s matchup.

Matthew Stafford has started 111 games, throwing for 30,717 yards, 193 touchdowns, 109 interceptions, with a 61.6% completion percentage for an 87.2 career passer rating.

Ryan has played in 33 more games than Stafford, mostly because of Stafford’s injuries during his first two seasons in Detroit. Overall, Ryan has thrown just five more interceptions, despite throwing 49 more touchdown passes.

To get a more accurate reading of where Ryan, 32, and Stafford, 29, stack up at a similar point in their careers, here is Matt Ryan through 111 games, the same number that Stafford has played entering Sunday’s contest.

Through 111 games, Ryan had 28,479 passing yards, 183 touchdowns, and 89 interceptions. While Ryan had fewer touchdowns (10 less than Stafford), less passing yards (2,238 less than Stafford), he also had a significantly lower number of interceptions (20 fewer picks) through the same number of starts.

The stats reveal that Stafford is more of a gunslinger, throwing for more touchdowns in a season (41 TD passes in 2011) than Ryan (38 TD passes in 2016). But Stafford also throws interceptions at a much higher rate and hasn’t been as consistent as Ryan year in, year out.

The number that Ryan and Stafford share that is most important, though, is 2-0, their teams’ records entering Sunday’s showdown in Detroit.